


That's How You're Loved By Me

by thatdamneddame



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Firefighters, Fluff, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1247260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bones will tell you himself that he is not a romantic. This, of course, does nothing to change the fact that come February 14th, Jim Kirk gets flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's How You're Loved By Me

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my super belated Valentine's Day fic. I'll do better next year.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to prettyasadiagram for the beta. And for supplying me with burlap table runners and countless other terrible ideas.
> 
> Title from the most Bones love poem ever: "To My Valentine" by Ogden Nash.

 

If given the chance, Leonard McCoy will tell you that he is not a romantic. He will rant until his voice goes hoarse and you’ve moved on to small talk with more interesting, less hostile people at the party. He’s been there, done that, has the divorce and the alimony and the fucking therapy bill to prove it.

This, of course, does nothing to change the fact that come February 14th, Jim Kirk gets flowers.

 

***

 

“Jim, if you don’t pull that damn fool head of yours out of your ass, you’re going to be pushing up daisies. Bones,” reads Gaila, handing over the flowers but keeping the card because privacy is not a concept she’s familiar with. The flowers are daisies, a simple bouquet of white flowers tied with a dark red ribbon.

Sulu and Chekov peer over Gaila’s shoulder, clearly doubting that what she read is actually the words on the card. Uhura, however, has no problem expressing her disbelief. “It sounds like he’s threatening to have you whacked.”

Jim leers at her. “Oh, something’s going to get whacked.” He winks because he knows she hates it, and it makes her roll her eyes. Success.

It’s not like he’s lying, though, Bones is totally going to get some. Jim remembers telling him weeks ago, walking past a house with window boxes overflowing with flowers, that he liked daisies—bright and happy, they were the one flower his mother never laid on his father’s grave. Bones, because he’s a total stereotype, admitted that he liked magnolias, and Jim spent the next two hours laughing at him.

Uhura takes the card from Gaila and reads it herself before passing it along to Spock. “This is the guy you’re head over heels for?” Uhura asks sounding incredibly dubious. “The one that celebrates Valentine ’s Day with threats of violence?”

Spock hands over the card to Jim and adds, “It does go against your usual pattern of carefree, short-term dalliances.”

Jim looks at the card himself and wonders how they all miss it, the thing that makes Bones the greatest person Jim’s ever known, let alone slept with. He reads the card to himself, hearing Bones’ gruff inflection on every word, and feels a rush of affection for the bastard.

“Gaila, I have a plan.” Jim knows that he’s smiling like an idiot and that Spock and Uhura are probably judging him hard for it. Whatever, they’re more likely than not fucking like rabbits behind closed doors. They’re not better than him. “And I’m willing to pay.”

Gaila smiles, wide and dangerous. “Why, Jim, what can I do for you?”

 

***

 

Technically Jim is on shift so he’s not supposed to be out running personal errands like buying his boyfriend flowers, but it’s two in the afternoon and no one’s going to burn down their kitchen in a romantic attempt at baking for at least three hours. But just in case Pike decides to stop by, Jim runs to the Walgreens at the end of the block and hauls ass back to the station.

The flowers are tied with a garish pink bow and have a small pink heart balloon stuck in the middle. It is entirely drenched in glitter. Even if they weren’t one of the last bouquets left, Jim would still think they’re perfect.

“Okay, no, he’s definitely going to kill you,” Uhura tells him when she spots them. Jim doesn’t know what her problem is. Or why the hell she and Spock are still hanging around the station.

“Don’t you have a kitten to go rescue out of a tree or something?” Jim asks her, trying to find a pen.

Spock frowns deeply. “For someone who has been with the fire department for quite some time, you have an inaccurate grasp of the responsibilities of emergency medical services.” Uhura laughs, and, honestly, Jim has no idea about that woman.

“I’m not, ugh—” There is no point, Jim knows now, in correcting Spock. Anyways, he’s pretty sure that Spock just says shit like this just to annoy him. “Look, you guys don’t know Bones.” Jim’s not actually sure if this is true. Spock and Uhura might, but Jim doesn’t really want to ask; the idea of them having unfettered access to Bones to gossip about Jim keeps him up at night.

Spock and Uhura share some sort of couple-y glance that clearly says, “look at Jim and his terrible relationship track record,” but at least they keep quiet. Jim finds a pen and some paper and, miracle of miracles, Spock and Uhura manage to keep their talons out of him long enough for Jim to write out a note.

He hands it over along with the flowers to Gaila and says, “If you promise not to read what I wrote, I’ll lift my circus peanuts in the station ban.” He pulls out a bag of terrible neon orange-colored atrocities and dangles them in the air.

“Fuck you, circus peanuts are delicious,” Gaila tells him, grabbing the bag from his hands. “You have yourself a deal.”

 

***

 

The text comes before Gaila even gets back. _I’m dating a child_.

_I prefer the term manchild_ , Jim types back and he must be grinning like an idiot, because Sulu wolf whistles from across the break room.

Bones doesn’t respond right away, but that’s okay, Jim didn’t really think he would.

 

***

 

“Are medical professionals supposed to look that murderous?” Gaila asks when she gets back. She finds Jim in the kitchen eating Ho Hos and gazing at his flowers like a lovesick teenager.

He straightens up as quickly as possible so Gaila doesn’t call him out on it and shrugs. “I’m not really sure that he cares, either way.”

Gaila looks at him seriously and it’s one of the reasons Jim likes her so much—Gaila knows how to have fun, a _lot_ of fun, but she’s pulled enough party girl shit in her day that she knows all of Jim’s tricks. “Why’s this one different?”

Officially, Jim and Bones have only been dating four months, which is about two months longer than Jim’s last serious relationship and four times longer than the month he and Gaila spent trying to go steady before realizing that they were both pretty much in it for the sex. The easy answer is, of course, because this relationship has lasted longer, but even still, Jim thinks he’d rather listen to Chekov’s Russian Opera for a week straight than ever give Bones up.

Bones is grumpy and mean and scared of flying and probably a little xenophobic. He doesn’t like trying new things and he doesn’t suffer fools lightly and he hums songs from Yo Gabba Gabba when he makes breakfast in the morning. Jim once told him his favorite flower and Bones remembered.

“He’s a good guy,” Jim tells her, “underneath all that grump.”

Gaila hums like she understands something. “Well, he seems to like you, if the flowers are any indication.”

Jim smiles. “What’s not to like? I’m awesome.”

 

***

 

Because Jim’s life is not as wildly unpredictable as people seem to think it is, he meets Bones when he breaks his leg falling off a ladder and has to call an ambulance because everyone he knows is working and Jim can’t drive himself to the hospital. The only reason the station doesn’t know every detail of this already is because Jim had begged the emergency operator to send any ambulance but Spock and Uhura.

The only reason Bones is his doctor is because it’s a slow day in the ER and he, as Jim later finds out, can’t pawn Jim’s simple fracture off on some lesser physician. Bones calls Jim an infant when he flinches at every needle and Jim asks if Bones has ever heard of something called bedside manner.

But it turns out they laugh at the same jokes and they get their Chinese from the same place and they could both use someone to believe in them. It shouldn’t be easy—Jim is the biggest slut this side of the city and Bones is a divorcé rocking stubble and murder-eyes—but Jim has never met a challenge he didn’t like and Bones is the world’s biggest softie, underneath it all. Somehow, it just works.

 

***

 

Five o’clock hits and, like Jim predicted, the calls start to roll in. None of them too terrible and no one gets hurt, but still, Jim knows, like, five bakeries that do a decent cupcake. The way to say “I love you” has never been with minor facial burns.

_people keep acting like burning down your apartment is a great gift_ , Jim texts on the way back to the station after their third call.

There must be a lull at the hospital, because Bones texts back almost instantly, _better than a vibrating dildo stuck up your ass_.

_i don’t know, i still like my flowers_

_that’s because you’re easy_

As he reads the text, Jim can almost see the small smile on Bones face and his heart skips a beat. Not even when Jim was dating Carol Marcus and he thought he was in love did he ever feel this head over heels. It’s a bit ridiculous, Jim supposes, to have slept his way through half the city and find himself here, twenty-seven and in love with the world’s most cantankerous doctor, but, then again, Jim never has never taken the easy way out.

 

***

 

( _next year we’re both taking the day off and i’ll show you how to use a vibrating dildo properly_ , Jim promises.

_i’m a doctor_ , Bones reminds him, _what makes you think I don’t already know?_

The end of shift cannot come soon enough.)

 

***

 

Uhura and Spock swing by the station a little after midnight.

“When will people learn that having sex in a room full of candles isn’t romantic?” Uhura sighs. “It’s a fire hazard.”

“Those fake LED candles are a much better option,” Spock agrees. “They provide the soft lighting of traditional candles but do not carry the same risk.”

Jim has a sudden, vivid image of Spock and Uhura fucking in a room full of candles and he regrets all of his life choices. “Who even has time to light candles?” He wonders aloud. “There’s sex to be had.”

Gaila cuffs Jim upside the head. “It’s romantic. Some people are actually trying to impress the person they’re sleeping with.”

Jim must make a face because Uhura gapes. “Please tell me that you had something planned for Valentine’s Day.”

“I bought him flowers!” Jim protests, wondering how he’s ended up here, with Gaila and Uhura looking at him like he’s done something wrong and Spock giving him a sympathetic shake of the head.

“Dear Bonesy, roses are red, violets are blue, please don’t kill me because I’m your boo,” Gaila recites. “What? I totally read that card and I am not even remotely surprised that he wants to murder you.”

“A) He doesn’t want to murder me,” Jim informs her darkly. “And, B) circus peanuts are totally banned from the station again.” Gaila, because she has probably been using Chekov as her disgusting candy drug mule for the past two years, doesn’t even bat an eye at Jim.

Uhura, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. “Wait, are you dating _Leonard_? Leonard McCoy?”

“Um, yes,” Jim tells her, feeling strangely uncomfortable. “Why?”

“Well, it would explain why Chapel was tormenting him with hipster wedding ideas from Pintrest.”

“It would also explain why Nurse Chapel was performing a dramatic reading of that very letter you had Gaila deliver to him,” Spock adds, and Jim sees his life ending significantly earlier than he had anticipated.

“I much preferred it when you all stayed out of my personal life,” Jim informs them.

Gaila pats him on the knee. “Oh Jim, you know that was never an option.”

Jim just covers his face in his hands so he doesn’t have to actually look at all of his friends judging him, and as soon Spock and Uhura get a call, he makes a break for it.

 

***

 

(Chekov and Sulu are way less judgmental than everyone else, wolf whistling aside. Jim suspects that this is because Sulu’s hobbies are fencing and horticulture, and Chekov’s hobby is being an eternally baby-faced Russian history nerd. They’re also perpetually single, which means they don’t give a shit what Jim’s doing for Valentine’s Day—they’re just jealous he’s getting laid.

Still, they let him watch Jeopardy with them just as long as he keeps his (always correct) answers to himself.)

 

***

 

Despite Uhura and Gaila’s belief that Bones is going to murder him, Jim and Bones never actually agreed to do anything on Valentine’s Day. On the one hand, they both had to work, and on the other, Jim thought that the holiday was a load of horseshit and Bones had a bunch of weird, repressed romantic ideas about it that his ex-wife shit all over in the divorce.

“It’s just a day,” Jim had said over dinner the week before.

And Bones had snorted and said, “I don’t need you to hold my hand and tell me I look pretty.” So that had pretty much been that.

Besides, they had only recently worked their way up to saying _I love you_ and it still felt new and scary to both of them for wildly different reasons. But, ignoring their own emotional constipation, Jim didn’t see any need to force what they did have together.

Yes, Bones bought Jim daisies but more than that, he also cooks Jim breakfast and told him the truth about his father and introduced him to his daughter. Jim hates Valentine’s Day because it makes people think that one day of chocolate and flowers is enough when you love someone, but Jim knows that’s just the opening move to get into someone’s pants. Love is when Bones says, “Joanna’s coming over this weekend, so you’re going to need to wear pants,” like it’s no big deal at all. Like he isn’t giving Jim his heart and his trust and moving past all his post-divorce insecurities.

Bones sent Jim flowers, but Jim thinks that February 14th had nothing to do with it.

 

***

 

Jim is woken up by the ringing of his cell phone. He gropes blindly for it, trying to answer it before Chekov throws something at his head.

“Hello?” he answers, ducking out of the dorm room and into the blinding light of day. “Oh my God, make the sun go away.”

On the other end of the line, Bones laughs. “Did I wake you up, sleeping beauty?”

“You know us firemen,” Jim smiles, “always up and ready for anything.”

“Oh really?” Bones practically purrs, making Jim feel all kinds of tingly.  It has been way too long since they last saw each other. “I was just going to ask if you wanted breakfast.”

What Jim really wants is to fuck Bones against a wall, but his stomach lets out a traitorous growl. Jim is impulsive and horny, but even he knows he’s going to be useless until he gets some pancakes and coffee into his system. “I can do breakfast. And after, I can thank you for my flowers.”

Jim can practically _hear_ Bones’ scowl over the phone. “Do you also plan on apologizing for setting Chapel on me like a wedding-crazed Rottweiler?”

“Sure,” Jim agrees, and then just because he thinks it’s hilarious when Bones’ face does that thing, he adds, “Although I kind of like mason jars for glasses and burlap table runners. Nothing too fussy.”

“It also tells everyone we’re homeless,” Bones argues and Jim’s stomach lurches. Bones has said a thousand times that he’s not interested in getting married again. Been there and done that and if you ever met Jocelyn you’d understand. And Jim has been totally cool with it because he’s Jim Kirk and _committed monogamous relationship_ is a relative new phrase in his vocabulary. He’s shot it down before, when Jim’s joked about it without thinking. Bones has no problem calling out things he doesn’t like, but he doesn’t call it out now.

They’re nowhere near the point where wedding talk is in any way realistic, but Jim kind of likes the idea of it. Thinks he might like, a year from now, arguing about table runners and mustache-themed photo booths and if it’s realistic to have a bourbon-and-mint-julep-only wet bar. But Bones spooks easily and Jim has always had a hard time saying, _I love you because you try for me and I try for you_. So instead, he just laughs and says, “I’ll be sure to let Chapel know,” and soaks in the sound of Bones calling him a meddling infant, and promising to pick him up at the end of shift.

 

***

 

Bones is standing in the open door of the bay, his normally neat hair disheveled from pulling a double and dark circles under his eyes that Jim can see from clear across the room. He’s talking to Uhura like they’re friendly and he’s doing an amazing job at ignoring Gaila, Chekov, and Sulu gossiping six feet away like they’re still in middle school.

They’re still new at this— _Jim’s_ still new at this—but he’s also kind of sickeningly in love, so he sidles up to Bones, pulls him close, and coos, “Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I’ve got a bad case of loving you,” into his ear.

“Dammit, Jim,” Bones grouses, pretending to shove Jim away but really pulling him closer.

Uhura looks at them like they’ve both grown an extra head and also like she wishes she could be anywhere else but here. “You should have told me you were dating Leonard,” she says smiling fondly at Bones, a terrible glint in her eye. “I’ve just been telling him about that time you experimented with manscaping in the single stall bathroom.”

Jim will deny until his dying breath the indignant squawk he makes, but Bones laughs, loose limbed and easy. “And we will get back to that story later,” he agrees, "but I promised Jim breakfast."

"I'm pretty sure I promised a couple things, too," Jim adds.

Uhura rolls her eyes at Jim and turns to Bones. "You're too good for him.”

And Jim agrees because she’s right, she’s abso-fucking-lutely right, before steering Bones out of the fire house. He has plans for them that don’t involve Gaila and Spock joining the tell-Bones-terrible-things-about-Jim parade.

 

***

 

(They swing by Jim’s place for a change of clothes and to brush their teeth before they go for breakfast.

“I really am going to fuck you into the mattress later,” Jim promises. “But I find the best kind of foreplay is you buying me waffles.”

Bones just rolls his eyes, but he actually holds Jim’s hand all the way to the diner and Jim thinks that says everything.)

 

***

 

“I actually did want to thank you for the flowers,” Jim says, much later, after breakfast and some pretty athletic I-haven’t-seen-you-in-almost-48-hours sex.

“Yeah, well,” Bones grumbles, “it was Valentine’s Day.”

Jim rolls over so that he’s half laying on top of him, chin resting on his shoulder. “But you didn’t have to.” He’s trying to get better at this, at saying what he means. Jim’s really good at getting people but he’s never been good at keeping them. It never really bothered him before Bones.

Bones cups the back of Jim’s neck with his hand and Jim love’s Bones’ hands. “I wanted to.” He rubs his thumb in small circles behind Jim’s ear, and Jim thinks that Bones isn’t really good at keeping people either. But he’s trying. “For some strange reason, I like you.”

Jim can tell that he’s grinning like an idiot, so he just goes for and leans in for a kiss. It’s softer than their other ones, almost chaste, but he means it. “Good, because you’re not getting rid of me.”

Bones smiles, hazel eyes shining, and leans up to kiss Jim again. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Jim,” he tells him. “I love you.”

Neither one of them is good at this, and they might not even be playing the game with the same rules as everyone else, but Jim thinks he wouldn’t trade Bones for the world.

“I love you, too,” Jim says, and seals it with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> to my dear prettyasadiagram: no matter what you think, circus peanuts are motherfucking delicious. As the Jim to my Bones, it is fair that you hate them, but that doesn't stop you from being wrong.


End file.
